On 10/16/06 5:27 AM, "Colin Barrett" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> As someone who's helped set up and determine mailing list policy, it's > MUCH easier to have as few lists as possible. Colin, I tend to agree with this, and as such that's why we only started with three lists which were varied based on focus/traffic/audience expectations. microformats-announce - low-traffic. moderated. for once in a while significant announcements. for folks that only want the highest of high level updates about microformats. microformats-discuss - open discussion about microformats leaning towards introductory and how-to use/publish discussions. this list should be beginner-friendly. modeled after the very successful css-discuss list. microformats-dev - open discussion (moderated membership) about writing code to produce/consume/index/manipulate microformats. focused on technical/developer discussions that would likely be noise to those who just want to learn what microformats are in general. also limited (initially) to those *with* an actual implementation in order to minimize/reduce purely theoretical (including chicken littling) discussions which tend to filibuster real-world development. After that, when it became clear that there was very strong interest in having open discussions about microformats and APIs/REST usage, which didn't fit well into any existing list (it would have caused too much noise on microformats-discuss), we created: microformats-rest Thus lists have *only* been created when necessary to avoid overwhelming (some might say "polluting") the "normal" types of discussions in existing lists. I don't believe in any kind of "global" reorganization of mailing lists because that tends to be very disruptive to *everyone* who is reading them. Just like the microformats principles say for microformats, we start small and simple, and iterate incrementally, which in this case means only creating *one* new list when it seems absolutely necessary, and I think we have crossed that threshold. It's pretty clear to me that the discussions around creating *new* microformats (which frankly should be a tiny fraction of discussions about microformats in general), has overwhelmed the microformats-discuss list in the past several weeks (couple of months). During that time I've also seen a bunch of "newbie" type folks who had been following the list for some time, unsubscribe. I'm hypothesizing that they got tired of seeing discussions/arguments about new microformats when they were really actually interested in practical discussion about using microformats that work well today with tools etc. This is why I think we need *a* new list, *just* for discussing "new" microformats, so the microformats-discuss list can return to normal/pragmatic "how-to" and introductory discussions. In addition, there have been good points made about opening up the microformats-dev list to any subscriber and simply make it a *policy* to keep the discussion focused on real-world developer issues rather than purely hypothetical issues. I think this can work for a couple of reasons: 1. microformats-dev has quite a few "real world" developers with proven/published/public track records on it. I think it is strong enough to withstand some amount of "new developer influx" who may start asking a lot of theoretical/hypothetical questions. 2. microformats as a community has matured sufficiently and adopted enough of a "pragmatic first" culture that even "new developers" are more likely to take a pragmatic/empirical approach to discussions rather than purely philosophical/theoretical approach. As I think is important with a community, I'm going to ask on the microformats-dev list, and see what the current developers think. > I think the idea of a > "newbie" list is good, We already have microformats-discuss for that. > but everything else is really relevant to > everyone involved. Not really. There are numerous developers that are *only* interested in supporting "well documented/mature microformats" and have no interest in theoretical discussions about new microformats. This is from experience not only speaking with individuals but also watching the difference in traffic between public W3C lists discussing specifications and discussions that implementers themselves have. > When creating new mailing lists, a good question to > ask is: "How many people that would join this list would NOT need to > join any others?" e.g. a list for people that work on the localization > aspect of a project is good idea-- most localizers don't need to be on > the development list. That is certainly a good question to ask, but the stronger need here is that of the silent majority of microformats-discuss list members who signed up with the expectation of a focus on introductory/newbie discussions. Protecting that "friendly / approachable" environment is important. > Also, I don't think the traffic on this list warrants "splitting up" > this list. If it weren't for a burst of unsubscribers in September and October (which I realize is not public information) I might agree. I myself have had trouble separating out the lengthy arguments about currency/species from the few intro related questions and more importantly *answers* in the past couple of months. Thus, I think we only need *one* new list, that for discussing the research and potential creation of new microformats. I'd like to see some suggestions for the name of this new list. Here is what I have so far: * microformats-new (focusing on discussing "new" microformats) * microformats-research (focusing on the essential, and often overlooked by first-time proposers "research" phase(s) in the process) What I don't like: * microformats-propose (it misses the point of the process, and implies that there is a desire for microformats proposals - there isn't) Other suggestions for a new list name for this purpose? Thanks, Tantek _______________________________________________ microformats-discuss mailing list [email protected] http://microformats.org/mailman/listinfo/microformats-discuss
